


Mistakes & Other Hideous Things

by hulksmashmouth



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Accidental Pregnancy, Addiction, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-11 01:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16465709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulksmashmouth/pseuds/hulksmashmouth
Summary: This is what they get. They get this one night to pretend everything's fine and normal, that nothing's changed, even though everything has.





	Mistakes & Other Hideous Things

**Author's Note:**

> found this rolling around in my folder of documents. not sure if I'll continue with it, just thought I'd toss it up for the hell of it. takes place between dds2 and tps1. enjoy!

Page looks about as bad as Frank feels, when he sees her that night: like shit. Hair a stringy hay bale, dark circles under bloodshot eyes, wearing pajamas. The yellowed remains of a pretty impressive shiner on her left cheekbone.

"You look like shit."

She rolls her eyes but still steps back to let him in. "Says the guy covered in blood. Any of it yours?"

He passes her by with a casual brush of his hand to the joint of her neck and shoulder. "Just a little." He says it on the way to the closet that claims to be Karen Page's bathroom, a toilet and shower stall crouching together like kids sneaking a joint out back. She regularly lets him use her shower, an empty drawer for spare clothes, her kitchen. Her bed.

Mostly what happens in her bed is sleeping. If he comes to her on the deep heels of a fight then he's already seconds away from an adrenaline crash. Nights like that he's barely got the stamina to shower, then topple naked onto the sheets while she works on the couch. Sometimes she falls asleep there, other times he wakes up with her body pressed against his, two bumps on a log.

The first time he almost mistakes her for Maria. A flash of skin, waking up, and the warmly sweet smell of sleep. That's as far as the resemblance goes, only lasts a second, but he bites his tongue so hard he tastes blood. Worst part is, he doesn't start to get hard until after he's calmed down from the initial mistake. It's been long enough, now, that if Maria’s in his bed he'd be more afraid of who might've dug her up than happy to see her again. Instead, it's just Karen. He slips a hand beneath her sleeping t-shirt, cups a silky breast in his palm. She stirs, rolls over. They fuck slow, do it right. Go back to sleep for another hour.

The second time he's on his way to check in and bully her into installing new locks on her piss-poor door. At the edge of the block he sees two goons drag her drugged, listless body from the building into a waiting car. He follows the car, heart pounding, loses it briefly, finds it again an hour later. Fears the worst.

He snaps two necks to get into a building that should've been a squatter's paradise. Divided into apartments, piped and wired, then abandoned in the housing crisis. It's a labyrinth of empty rooms and possibilities, few of them good. 

Then he finds her, awake and alert but handcuffed to a radiator, on the third floor. It's the usual mugs. _You wrote a shit story about us, and now we're gonna chop off all your fingers and toes and send 'em to the_ Bulletin _to make em pay, ya hear?_ The same bullshit as ever, when people like Page are involved. He thinks she hears him in the hall, or else she's just a fuckin’ freak about keeping cool under pressure.

Three are dead before they know he's in the door. He unties Page while the thugs downstairs notice the disturbance and start to scramble, gives her his spare gun. They're gonna have to shoot their way out; she's a surprisingly good shot. He gets a graze on the arm, she's punched in the gut so hard he has to carry her the last few feet out the door. Just enough close calls to make the blood sing, the kind of shit he lived for overseas. They hit the pavement and run six blocks straight before stopping to catch their breath. 

Mid-way through lecturing her on putting _real locks on that piece of fuckin' shit plywood you call a door, for fuck's sake_ , he's got her back pressed to the wall and she's pulling on his belt and they fuck like horny teenagers in a supply closet in the rush of cheating death. He's not immune, even now, but he'd be lying if he said it wasn't more from the potential terror of having another corpse on his hands.

A few more times since then. Too many times, probably. He likes it slower, the inverse of violence, far removed from the terror he lives with on a regular basis. She likes riding him into the mattress hard enough to forget whatever needs forgetting. They don't talk about their feelings, but they touch enough to know the feelings are there.

“So, who hit you?" he asks while gingerly removing his bloody shirt. She leans in the doorway, watching his mass fill the minuscule bathroom. Watching him undress. "You say you walked into a door, I'm drowning you in the toilet bowl."

Her laugh isn't really a laugh, more like a single soft _heh_. "Other guy got it a lot worse; I was with Matt. Some idiot thought it would be a good idea to mug a blind ninja and a woman with a concealed carry.” 

By now they both know Murdock's the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. Still weird to think about though. At least for her. He could give a shit.

He stacks his filthy clothes on an old towel she lays out special for his visits, steps into the shower stall. Keeps the glass door cracked so they can hear each other. Rush of cold water; he barely feels it after years of icy military showers. "Good to hear the Devil's paying his dues." Bloody water circles the drain between his feet.

"Ha! Yeah, right," she replies while inspecting his clothes for serious damage. If he's staying the night, which he usually does, he'll run them through the wash before turning in. "Still got a _long way to go_ before he gets my trust back."

"He's a piece of shit."

She doesn't respond, but he can practically feel her smirk in the steam. He's quick about his showers, always is. There's something new in the cramped shower stall; a bottle of Irish Spring. He doesn't give a shit about smelling like flowers when he comes out of the shower, doesn't mind using her soap when he's already putting on a burden by existing in her space, and now she's bought him soap.

It feels intrusive. It leaves a weird feeling in his chest. Foreign. Like something's shifted. It's not good, but it's not bad either.

When he steps out she's still there, looking at him with an odd look on her own face. "What's that stare for?" he asks. Instead of replying she reaches with one hand for the stretched-out collar of her sleeping tee, pulls it over her head, and steps into the steaming bathroom to kiss him.

He trails water across the single room to her bed. They tangle together on top of her quilt and neck like kids. He's too tired for much else, but she doesn't seem to mind. 

Hand on her angular hips, squeeze, shift up to her pillow-soft waist, stop. He feels something familiar there. Page grabs his hand away, kisses his swollen knuckles, then nibbles on a fingertip. 

"We messed up," she says, voice barely more than a whisper. A tremulous confirmation of what he thinks he felt. The hardening ridge at the base of her abdomen, so like Maria in the early stages. Damn right they messed up. Fuck. _Fuck_. They've been careful, but not careful enough, and now she's got something inside of her that's half Karen and half Frank. Half beauty, half beast. 

They sit up, totally silent. She knows how he feels, and he knows how she feels. They both know what has to be done, and he can't help but feel his heart constrict despite all the wisdom in the world telling him _no, no, no._ He can't be a father again.

"I'm sorry."

Something shimmers in her eyes as she shakes her head, smiling tremulously. "I'm not," she says, reaching out to touch his chest. "I already made an appointment; I was going to tell you next time I saw you. I wasn't sure when..." Yeah, they don't have the most stable of schedules. Yet another to stack on all the reasons why _not_. He could have knocked yesterday, or tomorrow, or a week after the fact. 

But he's here now. "When?" he asks, sliding an arm around her waist. Slides a leg between hers. Holds her close. 

"Tomorrow. I'm leaving work at two." Her breath mists on his shoulder, cheek sticking to skin. "Nancy's going to drive me home afterward. Should be fine to work again the next day, and if not I'll work from home." She says it so simply, so matter-of-fact, that he buries his face in her neck. 

There's no such thing as a version where this works out. He's never going to be anything other than the Punisher. She's never going to be anything other than a journalist who won't let shit lie. Both of them addicts to their drug of choice. Maybe if just one of them was stable it could work, he could wire money while living on the lam, or she could provide, but instead they're both chaotic elements thrust into an impossible situation. There's no choice involved, only necessity. The necessity not to ruin a child the way they've already been ruined, time and time again. 

He cradles her head between his hands, overly aware of how easily her neck could snap, cornsilk hair trailing over his wrists. "You want me gone." It's less of a question than an assumption.

Blue eyes so pure and clear they could make an angel fucking weep turn up to him. He hates this part. Doesn't know what to do next but wait. "You could come back, after Nancy's gone," she says. "If you wanted to keep me company. She's nice, but not really the supportive type."

"And I am?"

"You know what I _mean_."

They both laugh at that, quietly. Night has fallen now, and they're both in the dark, looking at each other's silhouettes from a streetlamp outside. He kisses her, slow and languid, his hand back at her waist, feeling the hard, rounding edge of the womb trying to take shape beneath fat and muscle and skin. "You want me, ma’am, you got me." It's the least he can do, now.

This is what they get. They get this one night to pretend everything's fine and normal, that nothing's changed, even though everything has. In a few minutes he'll get up and put his filthy clothes in the wash. Maybe they'll fuck to the rhythm of the spin cycle just for the hell of it. When they hang to dry until his next visit, they'll curl up around one another and go to sleep a few hours. He'll hold her, wishing the feel of dividing cells under his hand could make him happy instead of scared, could make him feel the same way he felt with Maria. But he's in too deep now for any of that. They both are.

Her back against his chest, his palm flat to the plane of her abdomen, nose in her hair. Smells like jasmine and heat. Can't promise much, but he knows he'll be back tomorrow. Anything cooking on the back burner can wait. This is important.


End file.
